


крови и желчи (Blood and Bile)

by vogue91



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen, Introspection, Minor Character Death, Murder, Rare Characters, Revenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 12:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13190091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: He could see all those signs spreading pitiless over him, and it added to his joy. The slight tremor in his hands, the unrestrained batting of his eyelashes, the sweat starting to wet his forehead in spite of the cold. Rodolphus saw in him all he had had to bear waiting for the sentence that would’ve sent him to Azkaban.





	крови и желчи (Blood and Bile)

**Author's Note:**

> So, nobody tells us how Karkaroff died, right? I guess I'm entitled to believe that's how it went down. I hope.

Death. Death. Death.  
He couldn’t feel anything but death around him, nor he heard anything but it those days.  
As usual, after all.  
He had always thought himself a man with a discrete decision-making ability, but he had realized all too soon it was nothing but a miserable illusion.  
He didn’t have the power to decide squat.  
“Will you be on my side, Rodolphus?” “Will you go to Russia, Rodolphus?” “Will you kill him, Rodolphus?”  
Yes, yes, yes. It was the only answer. Because those interrogation marks where far more fallacious than they looked at first glance.  
There was no alternative answer to give Lord Voldemort.  
At least for this once, though, he could’ve bragged of having received a direct order. Too many times the Dark Lord had left to Bellatrix the task of communicating with him, too many times he had received orders from who was, at least on paper, his wife.  
And now for this slimy habit of his to support anything the Dark Lord ordered him, deriving from a fear common to every Death Eater, he was with in brother in a wonderful place, which however hid a mystery to the mortals’ eyes.  
Moscow.  
A frozen paradise, fixed in the eighteenth century, fixed in hunger, in death, in destruction.  
A smirk appeared on his face when he brought his eyes into those of the Muscovites. He turned toward his brother, winking.  
“Don’t you feel a little bit at home, Rabastan?” he asked, still snickering. The younger looked confused, and moved his eyes from him to the pedestrians.  
“What do you mean?” he asked, frowning.  
“Look at them. What can you see in them, if not the same horror that’s on the face of a Death Eater? They’re slaves, exactly like us. It’s just that their master doesn’t have a defined shape.” he sighed, shaking his head. “They’re slaves to the past, to history. In their minds there’s still an old memory speaking about tsars and uprisings, of soviets and massacres.” he went on, as if he was telling something to himself more than to his brother, who kept looking at him dumbfounded.  
When Rodolphus stopped talking, they kept walking. They were on the Tverskaja, the main street of the city, and neither of them could help but noticing the dull grey shining through everything, objects and people, animals and buildings. It all looked fake, as to destined to crumble down at the first touch, to go back being the ash it had risen from. Rodolphus didn’t feel comfortable, but it was too soon for the mission they had to accomplish, even though there was no trace of sun to tell them it was daytime, and not an obscure eternal night.  
They walked for what it felt like a thousand miles, they saw the whole city convincing themselves and others of being nothing but tourists. Tourists that had challenge the ice of the Russian winters, that seemed not to care about the snow falling implacable, as if it was a part of them, as if the ice cold couldn’t even brush them.  
Instead, the Lestrange brothers could feel it, in a weird way, as if it started from inside and reached their skin. They had experimented that same cold in a slyest way when they were back home. The cold of horror, the cold of endless death. The cold of their condition, which had stolen their hearts, making them puppets in the hands of Voldemort.  
Like in that case.  
Just for once, Rodolphus put something personal in what he had to do. He felt a sort of inextinguishable venom running through his veins, which had consumed his blood, flowing inside of him for years waiting for that exact moment. Rodolphus wasn’t there for devotion, fear, sense of duty or any other futile reason.  
He was there to nourish his revenge. 

~

It was nightfall, and it brought with it a cold sharper than Rodolphus could’ve imagined.  
They finally were where they’re supposed to be, about to commit yet another murder under the banner of the Dark Mark, which they both felt burning more than ever, as if it drew power from their purpose, from another act of loyalty toward Voldemort.  
They looked around, staring at the snow-covered stretches of the Zolotoje Kolsho, as if they wanted to burn into their minds that place, which would’ve become stage to a murder that, at least for once, was righteous.  
It took time and a lot of spells before they could see the solemn entrance to Durmstrang, hidden among scarce trees which had been once hunting territory for the tsars. They were at the epicentre of Russian history, there where evil was forged, mixes with the cowardice that lies in the hands of those who liked to exercise power over who couldn’t defend himself.  
They Apparated inside the school, activating that instinct they had perfected through time of becoming almost invisible. Invisible to the Wizarding World, invisible among the Pureblood families, invisible to the Dark Lord.  
And, Rodolphus had to admit it to himself, he was invisible to his own wife, blinded by the malice of a power he would’ve never had.  
The school hallways weren’t so different than the streets of the city that hosted it: grey, cold, lifeless. It reminded an abandoned cemetery, where the stench of death reigned, together with the weight of unsatisfied ghosts which couldn’t accept their passing.  
They went toward Karkaroff’s chambers, knowing that at that time of night they weren’t going to be seen. And, even if they were, something told them that no one would’ve been so smug or silly as to try to stop them without risking the same fate their Headmaster was going to face that night.  
When they entered his office, they found him sitting at his desk with his arms crossed. When he saw them he shivered, but he tried to control the instinct to escape, knowing it wouldn’t have done him any good, that it would’ve only made things worse. Trying to breathe evenly, he smiled maliciously to the two Death Eaters.  
“Rodolphus! Rabastan! What a pleasure to see you! What brings you here?” he asked, casual, as if he was actually unaware of the reason why the Lestranges were at Durmstrang. Rabastan frowned, while the elder brother got closer to Karkaroff.  
“You’re a good actor, Igor, you’ve always been.” he hissed, twisting his face in a hellish grimace. The other one swallowed, feeling the end getting closer with a creepy stride.  
“Rodolphus, come on... you know what it means to be cornered, I couldn’t help but...” Rodolphus didn’t let him finish. He took him by the collar, getting dangerously close to his face.  
“You couldn’t help but selling us all out to the Wizengamot, just to save your useless, slimy life, Igor!” he hissed between gritted teeth, in a moment of anger. He pulled himself together in a second, and let him go. He turned away, so that he wasn’t forced to look him in the eyes. “You knew you would’ve had to pay the price for your faults, sooner or later. And the Dark Lord knows how terrified you’ve been since you’ve heard of his return.” he explained, trying to delay the high point, letting the fear into the Russian’s heart growing.  
He could see all those signs spreading pitiless over him, and it added to his joy. The slight tremor in his hands, the unrestrained batting of his eyelashes, the sweat starting to wet his forehead in spite of the cold. Rodolphus saw in him all he had had to bear waiting for the sentence that would’ve sent him to Azkaban.  
“I’m begging you. No one knows better than the two of you what it means to be at the mercy of the Dark Lord. I didn’t want to make those choices, I was forced to.” he tried to explain, but he looked more and more insignificant with each passing minute.  
Rodolphus stared surly at his brother. He saw Rabastan starting to hesitate, feeling a sort of empathy for Karkaroff, and he could imagine why.  
Rabastan shouldn’t have ended up in that place filled with madness, he shouldn’t have been kept away night after night by the inhuman screams of the other prisoners. If there was someone above guilt in that room, it was him, for certain not Karkaroff. But he was aware the Russian knew how the leverage someone to take the blame off of him, and he wouldn’t have given that up if it had meant to save his life.  
“Get out, Rabastan.” Rodolphus said to his brother, with that harsh tone the younger had heard one too many times.  
“Rodolphus, he sent me here as well. You can’t...” Rabastan tried to protest, but he was shut up right away. With his eyes lowered on the grim marble floor he went out the room, muttering disconnected words against his brother. Rodolphus turned to face Karkaroff once more, his face more and more hateful.  
“You’re much more a bastard than the evilest Death Eater, Igor. And I’d expect nothing less.” he hissed, gaining just a disdainful smile from the man, filled with what little boldness he had left.  
“At least I’m not a failure like you, Rodolphus. Look at yourself: you like in the shadow of your very own thoughts, you’re the low man on the totem pole and you’re taken in no consideration. What do you have more than me?” Karkaroff articulated the words in a way that made Rodolphus shiver.  
“Don’t try these devious tricks on me. If you think you can touch me in any way you’re wrong. You’re a victim to your own cowardice.” he murmured, his voice almost broken by the immensity of hatred he didn’t even know he could feel. He raised his wand, closing his eyes. That bile that surrounded him, that venomous liquid which had taken possess of him paced up and down to obtain what it had waited far too long. It was like Rodolphus was possessed by a supernatural being, which mocked his every actions and made a puppet out of him. And still, he had never felt this powerful, nor this close to finally realize one goal in life.  
He had never obtained nothing he truly desired, while now he was one step from tasting the most delicious dish a man could ever want. Payback.  
“Avada Kedavra.” he hissed, relishing the last gaze on Karkaroff’s terrified face, which would’ve stayed burnt on it forever.  
When the flash of green light hit the other man, Rodolphus felt almost emptied, but he was soon filled with a surreal peace. He had accomplished his task, both Voldemort’s and his conscience’s, by now irreparably stained.  
In a silent prayer, he asked for the soul of the man lying in front of him not to find peace in eternity.  
He went out the school like a ghost, without leaving a trace of his passing. Outside, Rabastan was waiting for him, quivering. Rodolphus couldn’t have said if the tremor was to blame on the growing cold or on a sort dormant fear, which too often accompanied him on these missions.  
“Can we go?” he asked the brother, without mentioning what had just happened. He didn’t see the reason why, they bore a Mark on their arms explaining what their duties were.  
Acting always, talking never.  
They went away from the shadow projected by Durmstrang on the snow, before turning back to give one last glance to the impressing building.  
Rodolphus smiled. That place would’ve stayed burnt on his memory like the stage of his best revenge, like the picture of what had turned the bitter venom in his veins back to blood.  
They Disapparated, ready to be welcomed again by their house’s warmth.


End file.
